	computer assoc ca bolsters hand against ibm computer associates international inc s mln dlr merger with uccel corp uce will eliminate its strongest rival but the company still faces stiff competition from international business machines corp ibm wall street analysts said ibm is still the ruling force in mainframe systems software said scott smith an analyst with donaldson lufkin and jenrette but the combination of the two companies will clearly present a much stronger front he said besides ibm computer associates will be far and away the most powerful company in the field added e f hutton analyst terence quinn that field is a segment of the market known as system utilities or software packages that boost the productivity of a company s data processing facilities by increasing the speed power and efficiency of large mainframe computers the merger of uccel and computer associates combines the two biggest systems utilities suppliers other than ibm analysts said the remaining players are mostly small firms that will find the competition much harder than in the past for computer associates the merger with uccel caps a six year uisition campaign that has vaulted the garden city n y based company to the top of the software industry when the deal is completed sometime in august the company s revenues will exceed mln dlrs pushing it past microsoft corp mfst as the world s largest independent software vendor computer associates founder and chairman charles b wang took the company public in and since then he has bought companies and boosted annual sales from mln to mln dlrs for the year ended march liemandt took charge of wyly sold off its non computer businesses and decided that it would focus solely on mainframe computer software in the company was renamed uccel corp liemandt who said he will leave the company after the merger is completed also turned to uisitions for growth on the last day of uccel completed the buyouts of six companies for a total of about mln dlrs for it earned mln dlrs or dlrs a share on sales of mln dlrs the agreement took industry analysts by surprise largely because the companies had been such bitter rivals also dallas based uccel had engineered a strong comeback from the dark days of when as wyly corp it lost mln dlrs or cts a share at that time wyly owned a potpourri of different businesses only three of which were involved in computer software in walter haefner a swiss financier and a major wyly investor lured gregory j liemandt away from his job as chairman of general electric co s ge computer services unit computer associates wang and uccel s liemandt said at a news conference that the merger would give computer users a single source for a wide range of software products in addition to system utilities computer associates also sell products for microcomputers while uccel has made inroads in the applications software market where analysts said it has been successful with accounting and banking systems wang said computer associates would continue to support and enhance both companies product lines but noted that the company will eventually weed out duplicate offerings he said about pct of the companies products overlap analysts said the merger would dilute the holdings of current computer associates shareholders by about pct but they joined wang in forecasting that the deal will not dilute computer associates earnings for the current fiscal year quinn of e f hutton said wang has a proven track record of completing uisitions without earnings dilution therefore he said he would not change his earnings estimate of dlrs a share wang said he would look closely at the combined operations of the two companies and cut duplication in sales marketing and research and development analysts said computer associates paid a premium for uccel based on friday s closing price the company will swap dlrs worth of its stock for each uccel share which is nearly times uccel s estimated earnings of dlrs a share stephen t mcclellan of merrill lynch research said most software companies are currently valued at about times per share earnings but the analyst said uccel was worth the premium because of its earnings potential and customer base wang said haefner the swiss investor would hold about pct of computer associates stock after the merger he currently owns pct of uccel the executive said the merger would not alter his target of maintaining sales and earnings growth of pct to pct in addition he said he expects no problems in having the deal cleared by the antitrust division of the u s justice department uccel s liemandt declined to say what he will do after the merger but he did not rule out working together with wang reuter 
